A great interview came out this weekend with Shaq interviewing Kobe Bryant. They talk about their time together and the disagreements they had along the way. It is a fascinating look into their relationship and how they think about their craft.
Something they both share in common is a fierce competitive drive. They both were obsessed with winning championships.
For Kobe especially, winning as many NBA Championships as he could was his goal and he made massive sacrifices in his life to get it. He sacrificed personal relationships, time with his family, physical health, all as a means of getting championships.
But even if you are not a professional athlete, to achieve something meaningful you have to make sacrifices, but what complicates things for most of us is the lack of a defined championship.
Great athletes have a clear goal they are working towards, so it is easier to make sacrifices to achieve it. Outside of the NBA/NHL/NFL, the championship is up to you to define. You can pursue many different ends, you can live a life with no championship, or you can pick one for yourself.
If you are an entrepreneur, maybe the championship for you is an IPO. Maybe it is a $10M exit. Maybe it is hiring 1000 people.
If you know what the goal you are working towards is, you can make decisions about what you are willing to sacrifice to get it.
But if you don’t define what you are after– if you simply float through life with the goal of enjoying the day–you will have no context for the sacrifices you need to make to succeed. You will sleep in, you will take the easy way you, you will avoid hard conversations because they don’t serve you because you don’t have an end you are aiming towards.
One of the many lessons you can take from great athletes like Shaq or Kobe is the incredible value of having a clear goal you are building towards. You don’t have the NBA Championship to go after, but you have the power to define your own goal and start working towards it.
***One of the most enjoyable and insightful parts of the interview comes when Shaq talks about how he would take the offseason off because he knew how hard Kobe would be working.
Leave a Reply